Opinions on the death of _____?
Luke. Surprisingly, I haven't found much talk about it.
I remember thinking as I kept slamming the mouse button to smash on the ice to free him, while his eyes deadened, 'Telltale, you evil geniuses you'.
It was so traumatic.
However, after the death--everything just moves on, as if it never happened. They all acted like Clem fell in the lake, and Luke never existed. He was the deuteragonist! And yes, more than Kenny--since he only appears near the end of Episode 2. Luke is advertised on most of the posters of Season 2; and in my playthrough, my Clem was incredibly close to Luke. Yet I was only given one little opportunity to discuss his death, or him at all.
"He was a great guy."
Done. Back to business as usual?
His death--while brilliant in the moment, as death scenes go--feels unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. As the frozen lake approached, I knew 'Oh great, that will crack. And the noise will attract zombies'.
I was desperate for a choice to come up:
CROSS THE LAKE. GO AROUND THE LAKE.
It didn't, to my annoyance. And then Luke just falls in with Bonnie (who, WHO does manage to escape unscathed). Which moves on to my next point. The choice to cover him, or run to him.
I knew this choice wouldn't affect whether he lived or not, but I also knew that running other there would cause the ice to crack, and for us both to fall in. (Which is what happened, as I googled after completing the episode, that was otherwise great, may I add)
So I covered him. I quickly shot every zombie on the lake, as best I could. An eleven year old girl shot every zombie on a lake while Bonnie didn't do shit -- yet after the event, she criticizes me for not 'trying to save him'. Ridiculous.
But otherwise, I loved the episode. It exceeded my expectations. But I feel I needed to vent on the two things that irked me the most. Luke's pointless death, as mentioned above... and the miraculous fact how the whole group survived the shoot-out.
However, back to my initial question--what are your opinions on the overall arc of the character Luke, and the way it ended?
Edit: Moreover--as someone else put it on the forum--The Walking Dead is in desperate need for long-term characters. For reasons I won't detract for him. Luke was a perfect candidate for that. Best of all, of course would have been Kenny -- but now he is determinant, with seemingly most people with Jane...so his future role is 90% diminished.
Comments
I think I died a bit on the inside.
It wasn't the best death, but it wasn't the worst (that "honor" goes to Nick, oh how much I hated that scene).
Another cheap death just like every single death that happened in this season.
You know there's something WRONG going on at Telltale if even Gavin says this.
Shocking death, but extremely dissapointing. I was upset too
that afterwards, it felt like nobody really cared much.
I think the sole purpose of killing him off was for a shocking
plot twist... It sucks...
Luke could've been more and was hyped up to be more by TT themselves, but like a lot of things that were hyped up it just never really happened (cough Carver, cough Nick, cough Sarah). We got some closure/development at the start but I think that was just making up for lost time due to the fact that the last 3 episodes of development were soaked up by the plot sponges known as Kenny & Jane.
If I have to be brutally honest, I have a suspicion that the community had a hand in Luke's death. When threads and posts were complaining about the petty Kenny/Luke arguments and that they'd rather have a Bonnie/Mike decision, maybe the writers had a change of heart. It's just suspicious to me that according to a certain sound file that Luke was supposed to survive the lake crossing as well.
Kenny VS Jane: NO
Kenny VS Luke: YES
I thought it was interesting and inventive. For me the problem was more about Luke not having been around long enough to be particularly distinctive. He seemed to exchange attitudes/values with nick and be kind of half a character (like they split a single character at some point to make the game dynamics work, so we're left with two characters that are basically the same archetype being spread too thin).
When he was walking with Mike it seemed to make a lot of sense that they should team up and be best buds and somehow be one whole character where individually they just didn't seem complete.
When crossing the ice, I knew that someone wasn't going to make it across. And then when I saw Luke on all those cracks...right when he'd become one my all time favorites telltale just had to take him from me DX
I actually prefer it if you try to help him though. It made his death even sadder to me because of how he kept begging Clem to go back, to save herself. And I think his death scene was fantastic, at least better than a lot of the ones this season, since it not only was well done but contributed to the story as well. Although I do wish that Clem would've cried instead of just whimpered.
Walking on thin ice is always a stupid choice, they shouldn't even have thought of doing that, it makes them look like amateurs in the Z.A.
I've seen plenty of these "Luke's death" threads. It's up there with the Kenny vs Jane threads I've seen around.
Anyway, I'd like to pay my two cents into this:
It was pretty traumatic for me. When you really care for a character in this game and you try everything you possibly can to save them but they end up dead either way, it's really difficult to get over.
His death (either one: [cover Luke] [help Luke]) was scary as hell. Not being able to breath because you're underwater and there's ice covering the surface is a terrible way to die IMO. And when you're so close to being able to breath but instead you're dragged down deeper underwater because a walker's got your foot has got to be awful.
Also, I was completely blindsided by his death. I thought he would survive until the end (maybe be determinant, you know pizza vs ice cream before we knew it was Kenny vs Jane) but nope, he dies and I'm still having a hard time with his death.
Happy birthday, Luke (I hope you don't mind ice cream cake....too soon?)
Agree with Gavin!
I expected it.. did you know originally he was supposed to live?
I like that fan feedback is what Telltale listens to but I hate it when that affects an important part of the story they want to tell, it makes the story seem jumbled
That's pretty COLD of you.
I really liked Luke, but I think Telltale did a good job. I was really surprised by his death. I thought episode 4 and 5 were all building up to a Luke vs Kenny choice but that all went out the window when he died leaving me not knowing what was going to happen. Crossing the ice seemed like bad move from the start, but aside from that no complaints here.
In real life that would have scarred me seriously.
But Luke could've been developed so much more.
I felt like the death was a change of pace (drowning in a zombia apocalyose!?) But I feel like they wasted husge potential, not just by killing Luke, but by killing everyone from the Cabin group.
Mostly I would have liked Nick and Sarah to possibly survive as well. They don't have to die to be seperated from the group if they want to make solitary and small groups for the endings.
The sudden death doesn't upset me as much as the aftermath of it did.
It was sad to see Clementine smile in the very next scene once they lit the fire
I mean I hated seeing her sad and all but someone just died, and it was Luke, of all people! I love TWD but this is my one and only criticism of that episode. You could justify that Clem and the group just have to move on in order to survive, but I do think a couple of scenes should have been devoted entirely to mourning him.
Sad. Very, very sad.
He had so much potential for possible storylines in season three. I'm not even saying that as a fan, just from a writing perspective. I do agree with what some other people have been saying: the community's constant badgering of not wanting Luke to be fighting Kenny in the end may have played a part in them wanting to make the final choice more unpredictable and dramatic.
They screwed him over. I could not even care less about Jane and I have very mixed opinions on Kenny so I'm miffed that those were the two I had to choose between. Not to mention nobody even talked to Clementine about Luke's death after he died. I was comforting everyone else, even the girl who knew him for like two days. I'm the eleven year old girl in this situation who just lost a friend.. shouldn't they be comforting me?
(You can tell I'm right about the 'anger' stage instead of denial or acceptance.)
Damn, I've said a whole bunch about his death, but I won't keep on repeating how I felt in every thread, if you wanna know how I feel, I've put a lot of insight into it in recent comments.
Yeah, even though I feel his death added a lot to the story, the little mourning that he got was pathetic. With such a sudden and unexpected death, Telltale could've given us a little more time to process it and be able to be sad, but instead everything after his death felt so rushed...
As OP put it, trying to break through the ice to save someone was an interesting scenario in itself, but I think it was an abrupt ending for Luke after all of his build-up. Of course, that's been my issue with most of the cabin group deaths. Character arcs ended prematurely, and felt more event-driven than character-driven.
Not as cold as Luke though
Luke had Rum, with some ICE in it.
I felt the same way about Sarah's death. I didn't like her...but Clem did. They were friends. Not a sing tear was shed? Nothing? BUT I was ok with LUke's death. It was semi-shocking and traumatic...it wasn't super shocking because I knew as soon as we decided to walk over the ice that SOMEONE was done for. I was really desperately trying to break the ice and the futility of it was heartbreaking. I think Clem's hopelessness after trying to save him and failing was enough.
I recently made a thread about the most depressing season 2 moments. I put Sarah's death as number 2 due to her depression throughout that episode (she really didn't want to continue) and the fact that she suffered a lot when she did die. Number 1 for me was actually non-canon Clementine deaths. It was horrible to see this character I love and care for so much die so gruesomely.
Your criticism is also one I want Telltale to improve on for the next season. While you can make counter arguments for that aftermath too I do think her death deserved some good mourning.
Back to Luke, I rewinded after I broke the ice. She looked so frail and in pain in the next scene, and I didn't want to think I'd made her suffer too much. Realistically, what I had her do was suicidal, and there's no way Luke would have survived more than 10 seconds under there. I know this discussion's more about Luke and not Clem, but as I say it's not the death itself that made me really upset, it was the treatment of the aftermath. I've since regretted rewinding as I think I should learn to accept my first choices.
Just to reiterate I really, really loved season 2, probably even more than the first.
I would honestly take Luke's death over Nick or Sarah's (second), those two deaths were terrible and stupid.
I hate how not one cabin group member lived in the end, and I just can't get over Luke's death. I mean he just seemed like too important of a character to die like that
Dude, i wish Luke survived so much. I liked him better than Kenny or Jane and he was much better suited for my compassionate and humane Clementine. I agreed with him at most points except when he was dumb and had sex, but hey, its human nature. Still, he should of saved it for a less vital moment, where he wasn't patrolling to keep everyone safe. I just can't believe they killed him off in a blink of an eye after building his character up so much, over the whole season and just that one episode where we learned more about his life before the apocalypse and seeing a happier side of him, and making (me) care about him. I think he should of had a more heroic death. And especially on his birthday, damn your cruel TT. But hey, doesn't matter had sex.
I really hope the forum didn't have a hand in Luke's death and it was TT's plan all along. And if they were going to have Luke live, I would have loved to see what would have happened after the lake.
I was hoping to see him through to the end but what are you going to do?
Btw, you said there was a "suspicious, certain sound file" ....link please?
It was annoying how, even if you were her friend and supported throughout the game, no tears where shed by Clementine. I mean, it would have been a nice touch that if you were friends with her, when you go to sleep, you have a nightmare with her death screams in it
I felt like Luke's death really mattered, because as soon as that happened, the group started to fall apart. Luke was the glue that held everyone together.
Fuck, when I saw Luke and the expression on his face when he was pulled underwater by that walker, I was in tears. Still cant get that picture out of my head.
Shock value and TTG killing someone to fracture the group. Little did they know that they killed one of their most valuable characters.
Anyone should've died instead of him in that place. Mike, Jane, fuck, even Bonnie.
Yeah. A lot of the time its the good ones who die. Sigh.
I totally agree with you. I even went back, rewinded and played that chapter again to make sure I can save him, but in no version was I able to. It blew. I also feel his death went kind of unnoticed and was unnecessary. For a second there I thought everyone was going to break down and yawn about his death. They sort of just moved on and never talked about it. I wish they had not killed him off too but instead kept alive for the next season, together with Jane and Kenny. His death felt anit climactic and gratuitous. "Let's just kill everyone" is not a clever plot element.
I didn't care i never liked him or Bonnie so when Bonnies dumb ass walked over to save him and fell in I backed out and let them drown.
I was pretty devastated by it, as he was my favorite non-Clem character of the season, hands down. After the initial shock and emotional punch in the gut wore off, I got pretty pissed. It just felt like it made all the build-up with Luke's character seem pointless, and for what? A pretty cheap, 'gotcha' device? It certainly didn't make me go, wow, I'm so affected by how cruel and unrelenting death is in this world, it made me go WTF that they made the final decision a conflict they threw together in one episode over one with actual development throughout the season. If Luke was going to die he should've at least been part of the final choice, and I don't see any good reason he needed to die anyway, seeing that a character like Kenny got a whole other season when he already had far more development than Luke just from his first one.
I was also irritated over the lack of time devoted to his death. I honestly couldn't focus for a while after that because I was still reeling that it had really happened, but the game is expecting me to be cozying up with Jane or going to work on the truck with Kenny. Like. Can I get a chance to react here? At least he didn't get stuck on a fence, I guess, but all this really shot my satisfaction with the finale in the foot, tbh.
I actually thought Luke's was pretty well done.
Sarah and Nick, however...those were shit. Carlos was also pretty bad considering only Sarah reacted to the loss of a doctor and leader.
Did they really plan from the start to mislead us with the Luke vs Kenny debate, only to then switch things around with the final conflict being Jane vs Kenny?
If so, it wasn't executed very well. The effect of the twist is ruined by the fact that there was far more foreshadowing regarding the rivalry between the two men than there was for Kenny's relationship with Jane. They hardly even interacted in Episodes 3 and 4.
If Telltale really was smart, they should have just stuck with Luke vs Nick. Have a growing relationship that's been established from EPISODE 1, rather than pitting two characters who only appear halfway through the season.
hahahaha omg he had birthday sex!!!
...I was very saddened by his death though. But birthday sex! XD
Luke found the river... Nick would be proud.